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TANGO HELL

Category Archives: Tango fashion

When I tell people I live in Valentín Alsina, they either nod or look at me quizzically. Porteños look at me like, “I’m sorry.” Foreigners have never heard of it. But from those who also live on my side of the greater metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, I get smiles.

Puente Alsina, as seen from the capital

Puente Alsina, gateway to my neighborhood. Puente Alsina crosses the Matanza River, commonly known as el Riachuelo, separating the city of Buenos Aires from the province of Buenos Aires. The Riachuelo is dreadfully polluted. The most contaminated river in Argentina, so they say. Makes me want to cry.

Once a thriving part of the great metropolis, Valentín Alsina has seen better days.

Puente Alsina seen from Valentín Alsina

downtown Valentin Alsina

Valentín Alsina is a street artist’s paradise. Images and opinions get right in your face.

This one says it all. No client = no business.

Ex-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is still a favorite in this working class district.

Young family with a couple of fuzzy friends.

Do you believe in creating your own reality? Don’t we all? There’s a Coliseum on the this side of Rome.

Create your own reality now, before someone else creates it for you. If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own!

Need a little help with the remodel?

“Wabi means that which fails to satisfy, wholly refuses to submit to one’s aims, and goes against what was wished. Take to heart that wabi is not considering one’s incapacities, nor even embracing the thought that being ill-provided for is in any way out of the order of things.” the Zencharoku, 1828

Bandoneon and bajo… the wabi and sabi of Tango.

Tango is the beating heart of Buenos Aires.

They call this el Muro Sur (the southern wall). You drive right past it after crossing Puente Alsina.

Abandoned factory…

meets lonely playground.

Pretty flowers and bright happy calacas remind me of Califas.

I like to imagine that some talented neighborhood kids did this fabulous copy of Picasso’s Guernica. I spotted it a few months ago, walking around looking for the Alsina cultural center.

German aviation forces bombed the Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. “Guernica had no military or strategic importance, and thus provoked a popular reaction against the absurd sacrifice of innocents.” [culturagenial.com]

This is my neighborhood. I think it’s pretty nice. I’m a fan of all things wabi-sabi.

The wabi-sabi ruin below is just a block away. Definitely a scene stealer. I hope somebody remodels soon. Perfect set for an action sequence in a nitty-gritty urban thriller… am I right?

Wabi originally meant ‘sadness of poverty.’ But gradually it came to mean an attitude toward life, with which one tried to resign himself to straitened living and to find peace and serenity of mind even under such circumstances.” Diane Durston, Wabi Sabi.

When it rains in Valentín Alsina, it pours. Last year my neighborhood flooded.

Too close to the river, I guess. Below, a block from Santos’ house:

That green stuff in the foreground is the grass between the street and the sidewalk. Flooding gives me the creeps. Whoever’s in charge of water management infrastructure hereabouts (levees, spillways, floodwater diversion systems) has been sleeping on the job for the last fifty years… and stashing those big checks in some offshore account. Panamá, Caymans, New Orleans?

What’s all this talk about diverting cash flows? When you lose buying power to massive inflation, or get charged 40-70% interest on your home loan cause you missed one payment… you must be in Argentina. Argentines pay taxes and get NOTHING in return. Broken dirty streets and sidewalks, broken sewage systems, inefficient wastewater treatment plants, ancient power grids… kind of like Venezuela, I guess.

Retirement pensions were cut 15% in 2018, and the government of Macri is considering another cut in 2019. That’s money people earned and saved… what kind of idiot thinks he has the right? Macri is such an imbécil, like his fellow Emperor Has No Clothes Trump. Hmmm… maybe that’s why there was a fiery picket line blocking Puente Alsina when I was heading home yesterday.

Picket Line on Puente Alsina

This Monday and Tuesday there were paros (work stoppages). Subways and collectivos (buses) were grounded both days. People survive by ridesharing with others who have cars. But no vehicle was going to cross Puente Alsina this afternoon; picketers lit fires at both ends.

Flashback from a New York Times reporter: “Back this month for the first time in 16 years, I saw a country stuck in what has now become its natural state: crisis. As if living a déja vu, I flipped on the TV to once again hear Argentine newscasters fretting about bailouts, the peso in freefall, and fears of default. Many stores advertised going-out-of-business sales. Still more storefronts were shuttered and empty, with For Rent or For Sale signs.”

“Consider the recent Group of 20 summit that drew global leaders to Buenos Aires, including President Trump. The Argentines erected a glamorous media center for an army of press. They filled it with avant-garde art and offered unlimited wine on tap, craft beers, fresh pastas and rare cuts of Argentine beef. They staged edgy performances – a sort of tango show, as if produced by Andy Warhol. – … Yet for the vast majority of the summit, the wifi – the most fundamental necessity for working journalists – was offline. Broken. Didn’t work.” – Anthony Faiola, New York Times, 27 Dec. 2018.

Welcome to Argentina. Sounds like Burning Man. No desert playground here, but we have our own Burning Man.

Who’s your Daddy?

Sorry, no avant-garde art or craft beers out here in the stix… but Don Tito cooks up the best asado in Valentín Alsina. Sit back and enjoy an adult beverage while I relate my Cliff’s Notes style version of local history:

General José Maria Paz

Lanús, the bigger city next door to Valentín Alsina, essentially a suburb, was established as Villa General Paz in 1888, named after numerous battles captained and won by General José María Paz in the Argentine civil wars of the mid-19th century.

Villa General Paz was officially renamed Lanús in 1955, in honor of Hipólito Anacarsis Lanús (1820-1888), a settler of Basque origin, who helped found the city.

Hipólito Anacarsis Lanús

Lanús dedicated himself to importing goods from Europe, and made a fortune supplying the war effort against Paraguay in the latter part of the 1860s. Paraguayan troops had occupied the city of Corrientes in 1865, thus persuading Argentina to enter the war as an ally of Brazil and Uruguay, who were already fighting the Paraguayans. [La Defensa, Diario Digital, 24 Dec. 2016]

Lanús was one of a group of wealthy men who helped Bartolomé Mitre start up the newspaper La Nación in 1870. It’s still one of the most widely read papers in Argentina, although perhaps not the most respected. Lanús later became a provincial Senator, and vastly enriched his fortunes provisioning the armies who obliterated the indigenous peoples in the south of the province. He’s no hero in my book. Bad karma.

What goes around, comes around.

The geography of what is now Valentín Alsina and Lanús, with a navigable river flowing into the Río de la Plata and hence to the Atlantic, precipitated the intense growth and commercial development of Lanús. Those in a position to profit could see that it would not be long before the huddled masses of the second half of the nineteenth century would be arriving: people from other latitudes and hemispheres, with other experiences and knowledge, other cultures and languages. All of them looking for a place to put down roots. The soil was generous, the sun smiled upon the land, and the river linked the new city to the sea, assuring the progress of some … but not all. Sound familiar?

Lanús wasn’t always as rundown as it is today. In the 1940s, Lanús was still mostly fields, creeks and trees. Lots more people arrived when the meatpackers opened: Frigoríficos Wilson and La Negra.

The canneries employed so many people there were 3 shifts a day. Frigorífico Wilson built a ballroom in Valentín Alsina, where workers danced on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons.

A downtown was built; streetcars were assembled and rolled onto new rails. Cars were still scarce in those days, while horse-drawn wagons were everywhere.

Practically every enterprising business made deliveries by wagon. Horse-drawn carts are now prohibited by law, but I still see a few around Valentín Alsina. Fueled by necessity, post-industrial creativity flourishes.

Who are the cartoneros? Mostly skinny men and an occasional woman, pulling a jury-rigged metal-framed cart, collecting used cardboard to sell to recyclers for a few pennies. I’ve never seen a well-fed cartonero. Recently I saw a cartonero loading a beat-up pickup. Civilization and Progress.

a local dairy from back in the day

Someone once asked Gandhi what he thought of Western civilization. “It would be a good idea,” he replied.

Now a major industrial center, Lanús is served by freight and passenger railway lines. The city has chemical, armaments, textiles, paper, leather and rubber goods, wire, apparel, oils and lubricants industries, as well as tanneries, vegetable and fruit canneries. Primary and secondary schools, as well as several technical schools, are located in the city, as well as the Hospital Eva Perón, one of the largest in the Greater Buenos Aires area. Lanús has a football club, Club Atlético Lanús, currently playing in the Argentina Primera Liga.

Argentina won the World Cup in 1978. Argentines like to fight so much at soccer games that only one side of the stadium will let fans out after a match. The other side has to wait at least an hour before they are allowed to leave; and all the bars and liquor stores within a mile are shut down. I know; been there, done that. Last November a couple of Boca players received eye injuries from broken glass when some River fans threw rocks at their bus, as they pulled up outside the River stadium. The match had to be rescheduled, and finally took place in the Santiago Barnabéu stadium in Madrid. Argentines are passionate about their sports… and they’ve produced some of the best players in the world.

Messi, Argentine God of soccer

Another Argentine passion is Tango. You knew we’d be getting to that, right? Following is a compilation of Santos’ favorite tango singers from Valentín Alsina.

Above, Tango singer Mercedes Simone, 1904-1990. Following, one of Santos’ favorite singers, Hector Varela, a local from the Lanús area.

Hector Varela (1914-1987) was a bandoneon player and composer of tangos who joined the orchestra of Juan D’Arienzo as first bandoneón in 1934. Legend has it that Tita Merello and Libertad Lamarque, Argentine singers and actresses, asked Varela to accompany them. Varela’s parents wanted him to become an accountant. He graduated with an accounting degree, but never worked a day as a numbers cruncher. In 1935 he joined the orchestra of Enrique Santos Discépolo, where he met Aníbal Troilo, another almighty god of Tango.

Cuando Troilo toca, Dios habla. When Troilo plays, God speaks.

An image of Troilo on the screen at Milonga Marabú

In 1939 Varela briefly formed his own orchestra, but then returned to the orchestra of Juan d’Arienzo, “el Rey del Compás,” and stayed there for 10 years. He formed his own group again in 1951, and over the years recorded 383 tangos with singers Armando Laborde and Argentino Ledesma, among others.

Another superstar from Valentín Alsina was Sandro, a singer and songwriter. (1945 – 2010) Sandro sang rock, pop, and ballads. Not just any ol’ musician, Sandro went on to become a well-known actor, producer, and director. He recorded 52 albums, selling more than 8 million, and starred in 16 movies.

Sandro on the far right, at a birthday party

Sandro won a Grammy in 2005. He was the first Argentine pop singer to perform at Madison Square Garden, and is dearly beloved to this day. Sandro’s star status enabled him to buy a mansion in Banfield, near Lanús, where he installed a recording studio, and lived there until he passed away in 2010. A statue of Sandro inhabits a nearby park here in Valentín Alsina.

Sandro

Edmundo Rivero, (1911-1986) singer, guitarist and composer, was born in Valentín Alsina. Rivero trained in classical music at the National Conservatory in Belgrano. A friend said he was “…a character straight out of the Quixote, born in the Pampas.” Edmundo Rivero had a deep, gravelly voice, and an unmistakable style. In 1935 Rivero joined the orchestra of Julio de Caro. In the 1940s he sang with Canaro. Later he sang with other orchestras, including Horacio Salgán and Aníbal Troilo.

“Look, Rivero, you better get off the stage, they’re starting to throw things.”

“You think so?”

“Can’t you see they’re throwing stuff at us?”

“Yeah, that’s how they always applaud me.”

“Are you sure, Rivero?”

Alberto Morán (1922-1997)

Born in Italy, Morán emigrated to Buenos Aires with his family when he was 3 years old. Morán made his singing debut in 1940 in the famous café El Nacional, known as la Cathedral of Tango (not to be confused with la Nacional, on Adolfo Alsina, or la Catedral in Almagro, or la Catedral in Mataderos). Morán really made star status when he joined the orchestra of Osvaldo Pugliese, in 1944. Some of his most famous songs include “Pasional,” “San José de Flores,” and “El abrojito,”​ which is a kind of thorn that pierces your heart.

Tito Reyes(1928-2007)

Tito Reyes con Troilo

Tito Reyes was born Tito Cosme Sconza in the Puente Alsina neighborhood. He and his six brothers were raised by Italian immigrant parents in a house his father built; wooden with a metal roof, the typical immgrant house of the period. The Sconza family home was elevated 1-1/2 meters above the ground, because the barrio of Valentín Alsina floods frequently due to storms.

No kidding

Tito grew up listening to the radio. He taught himself to sing, listening to Carlos Gardel on Radio Colonia. Tito apprenticed as a shoemaker, and later worked in construction and as a welder.Tito never quit working; he didn’t think that singing in cafés was a real job. Eventually, though, he must have wrapped his mind around the idea of becoming a professional singer, because in the early 1950s he began to use Tito Reyes as his artistic name.

The rains always end, sooner or later. The sky clears, the sun comes out, and lovely clouds come riding in on the sunset like a live fire-breathing dragon.

from my balcony

Seriously, how can you worry when you have a dragon like Smaug hanging around?

Saints need sinners. Otherwise, they’d be out of a job.

Jus’ having a little fun. Hope you’all are too. Over and out from Buenos Aires.

At a gathering of Polacos and Porteños I was informed by a Polish writer that if I’m not sufficiently self-disciplined to crank out a daily blog post, like a serious writer, perhaps I should write novels. I could follow my own rhythms without having to consider the reader’s expectations… hmmm… I guess I always had it backwards. Aren’t novelists the serious writers? Bloggers are another breed, a different species, a lower life form… qué no?

maybe I could upgrade to graffiti artist?

I seem to spend most of my waking hours as if dancing tango was my profession. Maybe addiction is the better word. Everything else revolves around prepping for or recovering from my addiction. Luckily, unlike other addictions, my “job” doesn’t involve robbery, hacking or hijacking to support my habit. Add a boyfriend into the mix and there goes the hours that I, a “serious” writer with a “serious” Ph.D. (in literature, what else?) should be dedicating to my craft.

Honk if you’re a Hippie!

Hanging out in cafés is another one of my addictions. I like to walk around the city, tune into the vibe, see who’s been scribbling on the walls. On a good day I can get some writing in, when I’m not busy radiocarbon dating adorable street artifacts:

“AUTO BEING REPAIRED”

jaja very funny! Being repaired by little elves who work after midnight? And unfortunately all the fixes are magically erased when the sun comes up? Doesn’t sound like the works of elves to me… I think they’re Trolls!

’63 Fiat?

A friend and I saw a guy at a café in my old neighborhood, across from el Palacio de los Patos, which I still frequent like a well-trained pet. We were all sitting together, us girls on the inside and the guy with a dog at a table outside, only a wall of glass between us. We watched him let his pint-sized dog sit on his lap and put its paws on the table. The dog had a little sweater on. The guy let the miniscule and misbegotten opportunist have the first bite of his medialuna. I think my jaw dropped, and not from hunger! After that I had to quit looking.

Wow… I draw the line at spoiling pets. I don’t get how people can care more about their pets than the little kids going hungry or worse every day in less privileged parts of the world… or their own neighborhood. Sorry to be so brutally frank, but… whatever happened to humanity? What about the Golden Rule? Treat others as you would be treated. Love Thy Neighbor. Corollary No. 1: Treat animals like animals; with love, respect, kindness, and well-maintained boundaries. Eg: Trust in God and tie your camel. Corollary No. 2: Back when we still lived in the caves, you didn’t let animals dominate you, or pretty soon they’d be having your liver for lunch. Corollary No. 2 also applies to apocalyptic combovers.

Back in the day great leaders UNITED people, not divided them

Segue to today’s geography Fact. Please note: this is not a slippery political Fact. Nor is it a Wikipedia Fact, or even a Donald Trump Factette. (Or is that a Factoon?) This is a true Factazo… and you heard it here first: the one and only true Mecca of Tango exists in the city of Buenos Aires, that awesome and amazing metropolis 6,000 miles S.E. of San Luis Obispo, California.

Buenos Aires’ quality of life is ranked 81st in the world, which ain’t bad. That makes it one of the best places to live in Latin America, with its per capita income among the three highest in the region. [Wikipedia, 2012] Buenos Aires is the MOST visited city in South America (ahead of Rio de Janeiro) and the 3rd most visited city in Latin America, after Mexico City and Los Angeles. (Yeah, you heard that right. LA has been a Latin American city since its inception.) About 13 million people live here in the greater metropolitan Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires defines itself as a multicultural city, being home to multiple ethnic and religious groups. Several languages are spoken in the city in addition to Spanish. This is because in the last 150 years the city, and the country in general, has been a major recipient of millions of immigrants from all over the world, making it a melting pot where multiple ethnic groups live together. Buenos Aires is considered one of the most diverse cities in Latin America. [Wikipedia]

Many Argentines are of Italian descent; the rest are Spanish, with a spattering of other nationalities, like the spots on an Appaloosa. Many are criollos, persons of mixed Euro and indigenous blood, born in South America. That’s why Argentines are so handsome, so beautiful. It’s all about the mix!

One of my favorite places to dance in Buenos Aires is Salón Canning… one of the most famous tango clubs in the world. Not everybody loves it, some people think it’s stuck up and cliquey, and they’re right, too. But the most fabulous dancers in the world go there to dance, to drink, to hang out with friends, to meet interesting foreigners and celebrate special occasions. It’s THE place to see and be seen in Buenos Aires.

Amen to that!

Orquesta Típica el Pichuco at Salón Canning a couple of weeks ago

In case you’ve already forgotten your geography lesson, you’re not alone. A survey of Canadian media consumption by Microsoft concluded that the average attention span has fallen to eight seconds, down from 12 in the year 2000. “We now have a shorter attention span than goldfish, the study found.” [The Eight-Second Attention Span, Timothy Egan, NYTimes, Jan. 22, 2016] If they did a survey of presidential candidates that number would shrink by at least half.

Buenos Aires is about 6,000 miles southeast of San Luis Obispo, California. But in energetic terms, like, cosmic vibrations, Buenos Aires, in fact all of Argentina, might as well be in an alternate reality. Land of warm and friendly people, beautiful people, trees with big purple flowers (Jacarandá), trees with spiky trunks and pods of cotton popping out (Palo Borracho), plenty of rain all year round. Land of vast prairies, unspoiled mountains, and abundant natural resources. Outdoor types come here for some of the most beautiful lakes and rivers and backcounty in the world… blue skies, good vibes, asados (BBQ) and Trout Fishing in America.

Lago Nahuel Huapi

The hypotheses of prominent scientific types submit that the cosmic Tango Zone is most commonly found in these latitudes, late at night, while staring into a big glass tube full of smoke and mirrors. Some people in white jackets call it a telescope. I call it a wine glass — or champagne if it holds lots of tiny bubbles — into which one can stumble … metaphysically if not literally … into dozens of milongas featuring live music every night of the week. One of my favorites is El Tacuarí, a funky offbeat tango salón in a gritty, rundown, unpretentious barrio called San Telmo.

Tacuarí 1557, San Telmo

Compared to Salón Canning, el Tacuarí inhabits a whole other universe. It’s a down home kinda place, a real milonga del barrio. Tacuarí is part of a collaborative organization of dancers, musicians, singers, artists, tango teachers, DJs, milonga organizers. One of their newest events is a monthly Tango orchestra jam session, where musicians gather to play for friends, family, and fellow musicians and dancers. I was there last Friday and it was phenomenal. Four orchestras each played a 30 minute set: an exhilarating mix of traditional tango, vals and milonga, along with Piazzolla and other contemporary tango, all performed with the exuberance of youth and nuevo flavor.

The Tacuarí tango zoners appear to be mostly under 30; hip, cool youngsters, lots of scrubby looking guys and beautiful young women, a few middle-aged hipster intellectuals, the usual lefty mix.

El Tacuarí was so jammed it was almost a meleé. A few dozen people spilled out onto the sidewalk in front; a happy, high-energy vibe filled the space. Musicians and company started arriving before 10. Beer, wine, sodas and empanadas were consumed at an alarming rate. More tables and chairs kept appearing from behind the very tall curtains at the back of the dance floor. The dance floor disappeared under the crowd.

A group of leather-jacketed Fonzie types were standing around, beers in hand, by the doorway.(Are they here for the music, I ask?Of course not, says a friend, they’re here for the girls!)There’s no scarcity of men who can dance in Buenos Aires. The odds are good, and the goods are…. dark and handsome!

The orchestras were electrifying. Most of the musicians appeared to be under 30. The music was awesome, the singers were really good, all of it as intense and passionate as the porteños who create it. The evening just kept getting better. Young unknowns = future giants.

Tango is the heartbeat of Buenos Aires. Tango was born here, and it still thrives.UNESCO calls tango a national treasure.Tango is rich, sultry, elegant, compelling.What can I say about it?My understanding is infantile compared to those who have grown up with it.Let’s just say that the more you get into it, the more you see that it’s an enormous genre of music: complex, classical, orchestral, radiant and romantic, an entire world unto itself, with a long and fascinating history.

What brings most people to that first tango class — is it the music? or the dance? Everyone has their own story. The more you get involved with tango, the more addicted you become. Tango pulls you in, like a giant magnet; you just want more and more. A beginning dancer — a principiante – learns a vocabulary of different steps and moves which the leader (usually a guy, but not always) puts together spontaneously as you dance.There are no set choreographies in tango.You have to practice long enough for the moves to become embedded in your muscle memory.After the long and awkward early learning stage (aka Tango Hell…) you begin to put the moves together fluently and expressively.Your inner response to the music is channeled through your outward expression.

If you’re a female principiante, let’s assume you can accept being led, perhaps in a way that is new and maybe out of your comfort zone.As you and your partner begin to move together, you may need to channel some of your impulsive energy into the dance floor. This will help you to connect and surrender to your partner’s interpretation of the music.Your energies will blend, possibly approaching harmonic convergence. OK, I’m having a little fun here, but it’s true. You are approaching the celestial realm of tango. It’s called Connection.

Of course this happens.It’s really so elementary, so fundamental to tango.The follower acquiesces to the leader’s interpretation of the music.You are dancing through his lens: his eyes, his body, his feeling. He, in turn, responds to your interpretation of his lead… the energetic response creates a completely new blend which, being spontaneous and improvisational, is always moving, shapeshifting. It’s a merging, an intimacy that is absolutely blissful.Two become one.Time and space collapse around you.You and your partner exist in a timeless bubble, alone in the universe, but not really alone. You’re connected in so many ways: to each other, to the other dancers, to the music, the musicians, the sound waves pulsing through every molecule in your body; your feet are connected to the floor, caressing it; the meaning and feeling of the lyrics deepens your understanding. At some point in time you realize you’ve arrived. You’re there. You’re dancing Argentine tango. The connection is everything.

I apologize for not remembering the names of the orchestras. I was tired, brain dead and happy but incoherent after 3 hours of classes with Ruth and Andreas and a glass of vino tinto. Ruth’s women’s technique class is the best ever… picture a relentless 90-minute yoga / modern dance workout, in heels. And you get to practice all those lovely adornments you’ve been wanting to learn.

El Tacuarí is over 100 years old; it dates from 1910. The original tile floors, brick bovedas, walls of hormigón; all a bit old and worn out. Steel reinforcement cross beams were added at some point. El Tacuarí has been renovated and updated many times… we’re talking past life experiences… previous incarnations… we all know how that goes. Some of those lives were better than others.

But… BIG NEWS!!As you may know, Argentine Tango was recognized by UNESCO in 2009 as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Tango informs a huge part of the cultural identity of Argentina and Argentines. This year the City of Buenos Aires added El Tacuarí to the list of Tango cultural heritage sites. This level of recognition by the city means that El Tacuarí will receive funding for restoration and preservation, as well as for modernization, including a new acoustic ceiling, improved ventilation system, and restoration of the original tile floor.

Juan Manuel, the bearded piano player, looks like a runaway from Portland

“The music, dance and poetry of tango both embodies and encourages diversity and cultural dialogue. It is practised in the traditional dance halls of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, spreading the spirit of its community across the globe even as it adapts to new environments and changing times. That community today includes musicians, professional and amateur dancers, choreographers, composers, songwriters, teachers of the art and the national living treasures who embody the culture of tango.”(unesco.org/culture)

“The tango is one of the most significant expressions of Rio Platense culture.During its beginnings at the end of 19th century, the tango was associated with the working-class sectors of the city of Buenos Aires and was thus rejected by the rest of society. Only when it succeeded in Paris did it become universally accepted by the rest of the social classes. Throughout its history, it often moved from the main cultural stage to more low-profile venues. Even then it was widely accepted because it was a musical and poetic expression which reflected the social transformations of the city, which moved from its origins on the banks of the river to the brothels, before becoming the property of the Guardia Vieja (the old guard, the generation of tango composers who worked between 1900 and 1930). It is both a dance form and a song, and changed with the formation of tango orchestras and the development and evolution of an instrumental form.”(atlasdebuenosaires.gov.ar)

“Each of these expressions had a social, a political, an economical and a cultural frame that shaped and explained it. In each of these periods these expressions gave rise to spaces where they could be held or performed. A place, a physical or geographical space, is full of a social meaning which confirms the presence and the identity of its bearers. It is a place full of memories and affection which regulates interaction, evokes hierarchies and reminds us of those who are absent.” (Ibid)

“Each of these places expresses a different moment in the development of tango and explains a different tradition in its use, in the construction of identities and relationships through time. These places are historical. They differ from each other. They show the complex structure of the territory and of meeting points. They express the Rio Platense identity and let others see our singularities, and they allow us to work at constructing our identity.” (Ibid)

Raúl Bravo with Guillermina Quiroga

At El Tacuarí you can take classes with one of the greatest living tango teachers of all time. Raúl Bravo, maestro de maestros, has been teaching tango for 63 years. Some years ago the city of Buenos Aires formally designated him a “national living treasure,” and I, along with countless others, have called him Maestro for many years. Saturday night was Raúl’s birthday, and many tango greats danced for the crowd. Besides Raúl’s birthday, we also celebrated the 7th anniversary of la milonga del Tacuarí. Photos, videos, calendar of classes, milongas and shows can be seen on Raúl’s facebook page, and at El Tacuarí Tango.

Raúl performed with Guillermina Quiroga

Feliz Cumple, Maestro!

Gloria & Eduardo Arquimbau, Angela Ruth Manonellas & Andreas Erbsen, Nora Robles & Pedro Calveyra, Toto Faraldo, and el Pibe Sarandi are some of the other world class teachers at Tacuarí. Classes are only 100 pesos (less than $7)for 90 minutes of the best tango instruction in the world.

Ruth and Andreas, owners, teachers and organizers of el Tacuarí, go off every winter to workshops and performance tours in Italy, Germany, and France. They just returned a few weeks ago from their 2016 European tour. Lucky them, since it’s summer in Europe when it’s cold and rainy here in Buenos Aires. Argentine Tango teachers seem to go back and forth to Europe like you or I would go to the supermarket. The above and below photos were not taken last Saturday, but you get the idea… they were spinning around too fast for my camera…. a stunning performance.

[I repeat, the above photo is NOT from last Saturday night! [If you have video or stills from the event, please send them to me and I will update the post. Same goes for the names of the orchestras and musicians. I appreciate your collaboration.][Estimados amigos, si vos tenés vídeo o fotos del evento, por favor enviarmelas a mí y voy a actualizar el post. Lo mismo va para los nombres de las orquestas y músicos. Agradezco su colaboración.]

Before closing I have sad news to report: the death of Horacio Salgán, Argentine tango composer and pianist. Adam Bernstein of the Washington Post wrote the obit, which I quote in part:

“Horacio Salgán, an Argentine tango composer and pianist who helped broaden the vocabulary of his musical form and became one of the genre’s most influential and revered maestros, died Aug. 19 in Buenos Aires. He was 100. … Like his near contemporary Astor Piazzolla, Mr. Salgán cast a mesmerizing avant-garde spell on the tango that did not always enchant musical purists in his homeland. … Mr. Salgán helped to forge the vanguard of the “new tango” sound in the 1950s and 1960s in a way that was less about rebellion than about synthesizing his varied, somewhat un­or­tho­dox musical influences.”

“Among others, Mr. Salgán drew inspiration from the U.S. jazz shadings of Tommy Dorsey and Duke Ellington, classical works by Béla Bartók and Gioachino Rossini, Brazilian choros and sambas, and African percussive rhythms. The result was deemed too uncommercial for radio airplay at the start of his bandleading career during tango’s “golden age” of the 1940s. … his best-known compositions — including “A Fuego Lento,” “Don Agustin Bardi” and “Grillito” — remain exquisite, even swooning, melodically. In addition to writing hundreds of his own compositions, he also arranged older tango standards to suit his protean tastes.”

“Mr. Salgán, who found appreciative audiences in world capitals such as New York, Tokyo and Paris, survived the fickleness of musical tastes in his home country. By his 80s, he had outlived most of his peers and was revered in Buenos Aires as tango’s elder statesman.”

“As he shifted into composing, he called upon his grounding in the classics as well as his mulatto heritage — Catalan on his father’s side, mixed race on his mother’s. … At 20, he played with Roberto Firpo, later with Miguel Caló. “Ella Fitzgerald was reportedly so hypnotized that she recommended the duo to jazz impresario Norman Granz, who then produced their 1961 album ‘Buenos Aires at 3 a.m.’”

Here Bernstein quotes Salgán from Yale art historian Robert Farris Thompson’s book Tango: The Art History of Love:

“Training in Western symphonic music opened up a whole world of harmony, orchestration and pianistic execution…. But there’s also a black dimension to my music. It’s not casual, nor flagrant, but part of my origin . . . my style and my truth.”… “There are many people who come to tango or to other music genres with the idea of innovation. I came to tango neither to save it, nor for anything of the kind,” Mr. Salgán once told the Club de Tango magazine. “I, among other things, play all the genres — classical, jazz, etc. — but … have a respect almost religious towards music itself, because music is a bridge towards God. . . . What turned out came because I spontaneously so felt it.”

Adios, Maestro!

That’s all for now, folks. Thanks for tuning in. I always appreciate your thoughts and comments.

In early October I dropped in on the City of Bridges to hear some great live tango orchestras. This year’s Portland Tango Festival showcased some fabulous live music: el Quarteto Alejandro Ziegler, and the Alex Krebs Orchestra. Alejandro Ziegler, on piano, evokes the sound of Pablo Ziegler, renowned Argentine pianist and composer who laid down lots of amazing tracks with Astor Piazzolla. Apologies up front: another reader informs me that Alejandro is NOT Pablo’s son. It appears that my milonguero friends here in Buenos Aires are misinformed. My apologies to all.

Pablo Ziegler worked intensively as Astor Piazzolla’s pianist from 1978 until the maestro’s retirement for health reasons in 1989. Ziegler’s playing style, both sharply percussive and metallically lyrical, is instantly recognizable to fans of tango nuevo. In 2003 Ziegler won a Latin Grammy for his amazing album Bajo Cero. Ziegler plays in the Jazz tradition, always improvising, arranging and rearranging his compositions on the fly, in the moment. He encourages musicians to find their own voice. His music is melancholy, evocative, far-reaching. It speaks directly to our hearts and souls: nos afecta profundamente, como una puñalada en el corazón. Opera has that effect on me too… the tears just come down, you can’t help it. Dancing a slow tango to Ziegler’s version of Oblivion or Soledad in the wee hours, well, it just doesn’t get any better than that, does it?

“I always tell musicians: You’re free to change whatever you like. I can give you some examples of the way to phrase, but if you feel something different, just play. Probably it’s fantastic. That’s one of the ways that I’m learning also from the musicians, too. Sometimes they’re playing and I like it that way. It’s a very open way to play music. If I bring some Beethoven piano concerto, everybody knows the way to play that kind of music, which is very strict. But with this music, we have to feel it and do something different. I’m giving them that chance.” (Pablo Ziegler, from an interview by Frank J. Oteri, Brooklyn, NY. June 13, 2014) (www.newmusicbox.org/articles/pablo-ziegler-making-the-music-dance/)

• The New Tango with Gary Burton, recorded live at the 1986 Montreux Festival

• The Central Park Concert recorded in 1987

The influence of Astor Piazzolla and Pablo Ziegler is unmistakeable in the sound of Quarteto Alejandro Ziegler. They absolutely knocked the walls down Sunday evening with their fabulous Buenos Aires sound!

Photos by Jerry Berggen, courtesy of “Tango Steps,” the newsletter of the Lincoln Tango Club, Lincoln, NE. (And he can dance, too!)

I can testify that there really IS tango in Nebraska, because one wintry night a couple of years ago, driving across country, I had a few nice tandas at a milonga in a really cool urban space in Lincoln. (Note to Self: don’t EVER do that again. The drive, I mean.)

The Alejandro Ziegler Quartet headed to Lincoln to play the following weekend. I’ve got relatives just across the border in Indian Country, so I’ve been there many times. Have you ever seen Carhenge?

Carhenge

You, me and a few spaceship-loads of aliens on invisible tours of Planet Earth! Uh-oh, am I getting wonky again? Back to the subject at hand: the phenomenal Quarteto Alejandro Ziegler.

These guys were coherent, fine-tuned, on a roll, in other words, maravillosos!I’m really kicking myself that I didn’t buy one of their CDs. Uff! I couldn’t find them on itunes either. Idiota!

The Alex Krebs Orchestra rocked Norse Hall to a huge and appreciative crowd on Saturday night. Love the singers, especially the guy with the Dalí moustache. They sound better than ever. The Portland tango community is lucky to have such a great house band.

Alex Krebs Orchestra

Alex has his own milonga called Tango Berretín.

It’s a lovely space, inside and out.

Alex’s Orchestra playing Berretin Tango Club.

Guille & Mayumi taught at the Tangofest

Liselot is a capable teacher, especially for newbies.

Here’s what I liked about the Portland Tango Fest:

•fabulous space: Norse Hall

•great live music

•excellent DJs, especially Dan Boccia from Anchorage

•simultaneous traditional and alternative milongas

•evening milongas started at 9 or 10 and went to 6 am… yeah night owls!

•classes started at 11:00 am, for obvious reasons. I mean, who really gets up for a 9:00 am class or workshop?!? pas moi!

•there were some very cool tango clothes and shoes for sale in the lounge

•there were 2 or 3 classes going simultaneously. Beginners had their own workshops tailored to their learning styles. This is a good thing.

•Did I forget to mention, LOTS of FABULOUS Tango dancers! Thanks to all of you for the great tandas, you KNOW who YOU are!!!

The downside:

•The gala evening demos were less than impressive. Comedy, acrobatics and tango selfies are no substitute for style and elegance. I think our traveling tangueros need to head home every now and then to remember how it’s done in Buenos Aires.

La Nacional

FEEL the connection… to your partner, to the floor, to the other dancers, to the music, to the musicians, to your own heart. FEEL the floor. FEEL the music. FEEL the emotion… disconnect your thoughts and let sound be your oxygen… just Breathe.

And what’s not to like about Portland in the early Fall? The sun sparkled on the river radiating perfect warmth throughout the city — not too hot, not too cold. You didn’t need a jacket, except maybe leaving the milongas in the early morning cool. The adorable streetcars and Powell’s City of Books were every bit as wonderful as ever.

Mt Hood glowing above a sparkly Portland night

Bye bye, Portland, till next time!

parrot guy

A few days later I found myself on the east coast suffering the throes of tango withdrawals. Needless to say, I wasn’t in Miami, that throbbing hotspot of tango cool. No, I was just a senseless misplaced pawn on a giant Monopoly board. I’m still in recovery from visiting the Sunshine State. One is bombarded with hyper-signage everywhere, and I mean everywhere. PR on steroids. The land of Madmen from Planet Dollar $ign. No cool cafés, no quaint cobblestoned villages, just shopping, greasy fast food, gated beachfront properties, Big Box churches and Big Box stores. The beach is beautiful, to be sure, but driving is the only way to get around… unless you’ve got a beak and a pair of wings. And the tango scene in northern Florida can only be described as, well… pitiful? nonexistent? Sorry, Sunshine!

Please excuse the nonsense bubbling up from the uber-consciousness waystation I like to call my mind…. The only thing I wanted to take with me from Florida was Mai Tiki Bar on the Cocoa Beach Pier.

How cute is that! And, a couple of adorable kids!

This gatorade fest I did NOT want to take with me.

Are they on Shrooms? Zoloft? Marie Callendar?

I touched down at Ezeiza two weeks ago, shifting into high gear once more, back to the Mecca of Tango: Buenos Aires. Highlights from my next post:

What happens if you LIVE for TANGO, but your dance partner’s secret desire is for YOU to want to dance with him ALONE?

“Baby, I want you to love me like no one has ever loved me.”

I guess that means I never loved you enough? Has anyone? Is it humanly possible?

“If I was the LOVE OF YOUR LIFE, you wouldn’t WANT to dance with anyone else.”

How many times have you been dancing… let’s say, in a class in Miami, New York, Buenos Aires… and your boyfriend suddenly walks over and rips you away from the guy you just rotated to?

Yes, he’s an animal! Sorry! Talk about embarassing!

How about when two of your favorite teachers comment that you are a saint to put up with him?

Yeah, the relationship was disintegrating over the last year or so. The vibe was toxic. I had to get out.

know the feeling?

He’s a extraordinary guy in so many ways: smart, sexy, generous… a real heartbreaker. “Qué pinta de malevo!” they said in Buenos Aires. Definitely old school.

el malevo

He played the possessive, jealous Latin Lover to a T. He expects a woman to devote herself to him 100%… you know, like our parents’ generation. He was raised that way. All the women’s lib and progressive politics never really made a dent in his consciousness. He couldn’t hear what I had to say or understand what I was feeling. Blah blah blah!! You get the drift.

Tango gigolo

Yeah, he should’ve been a King. Maybe he was in a past life. Carlos V? Shakespeare’s Othello?

Ah, yes, my Caliban, the “passionate child-curious part of us all…” (from The Tempest).

He would have been happy burning and pillaging, plundering women by the score. Taking “art groupie” to a new level! [1] ¡Cómo no, Comandante de mi vida, por supuesto que te quiero! Be Merciful, O Love of my Life!

I just had to get lost in Jane Austen for a while. Like, take a time out from the 21st century?

I reread Persuasion. Dashing sea-captain wins girl’s heart. Girl’s family doesn’t approve: he’s not sufficiently rich or well-connected. She breaks the engagement. He goes off to sea, endures raging tempests and howling gales, pillages French merchant ships aplenty, survives enough courageous exploits for a whole season of telenovelas. He returns 7 years later, fabulously rich. Everyone adores him now. Quite the huffy Salty Dog about town. What happens next? Read it yourself, you lousy knave! Or at least see the movie version.

Have you noticed “the versatility of shipwreck imagery in conveying various forms of misfortune?” [2] Speaking of his ship, the Asp, our hero was rashly confident: “I knew that we should either go to the bottom together, or that she would be the making of me.” (Persuasion, 71)

But whom would you prefer to live with? A feudal warlord or a happy village idiot? As those really our only choices? Of course not, silly. But my point remains: we have indeed strayed far off course in this 21st century. Are there no crossover models available? Like, a compact SUV? A mini-Hummer? What ever happened to the ideal Renaissance Man? You mean the DNA still hasn’t evolved?

Recognize this guy? Old Alfonso the Wise is the tío that kick-started the Renaissance. I’m not kidding! Check him out. He wrote the first book about the game of chess around 1283. The original lives at the Escorial, in Madrid. Yeah, he was a heartbreaker too, you can be sure. Renaissance Man cultivated “…a harmonious mind, whose splendid passions and imaginations are controlled and directed by [his] enlightened reason…” [Wiki] Where can I find one of HIM? Does HE exist?

Elizabeth Bennet disdains Mr. Collins

No, I don’t think he’s got it. His motto is Vini, Vedi, Vegi. ja ja! I came, I saw, I ate salad, I bored my cousins to death reading from Fordyce’s Sermons, then I got drunk and made a complete fool of myself. Too bad, so sad. Not my knight in shining armor. Not even California Chrome.

Am I dreaming? Do I have unreasonable expectations? Am I thinking too reductively? Is it too tempting to boil it all down to the struggle between dark and light? Am I done playing out my postcolonial subjugation fantasies?

Cristóbal Colón just back from the East Indies with a few captive Indians para Los Reyes Católicos

Guess I gotta be my own Rescuer.

Free at Last!! Lord have mercy!!

The Captain’s delightful sister, Mrs. Croft, comments on the voyages she has enjoyed with her husband, Admiral Croft. She advocates that women should go to sea with their husbands, and not be left behind to wait and wonder, despite the discomforts of life on board… not to mention being the only female amongst the crew… yikes!

Must have been tough to be a drama queen with no other women to bitch to. Oops, I meant to say, to pour upon each other the sisterly balm of wise and considered counsel?

“We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days,” Mrs. Croft advises Anne, Austen’s heroine in Persuasion. (75) A critic notes, “Mrs. Croft is arguing, obviously, for the place of adventure and geographical mobility in women’s lives.” You go, girl! [3]

Maybe I’ll go live on a boat… a little morning yoga on deck, anyone? Plenty of sushi and piña coladas? Warm, tropical waters?

Did I mention subjugation fantasies?Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato in Swept Away (1974)

It’s my turn to forge ahead with a little borrowed relentless self-confidence! I know you’re all anxious to see if I’m brave indeed or just foolishly reckless. Back on land, summertime is just around the corner… throwing out those delicious green tendrils, the tiny budding sweet peas, the gorgeous bursting hollyhocks… yeah, could be salad, could be scenery… is there still time to plant my garden?

Jane Austen describes a farmer in Persuasion, the scene at Winthrop. I feel like him. He “does not simply think that the season will change; it is as if his exertions will somehow help to bring the change about. His labor is a sign of his hope.” [4]

The farmer’s hard work can be seen not as an attempt to control the natural world, or to force a particular outcome in the narrative of our lives, but as a collaboration or stewardship with nature which guides our efforts, and which may grant us a deeper understanding of nature, including human nature, and give us hope for bounteous harvests to come.

“When characters in this novel exert themselves in such a spirit, they gain, by degrees and despite inescapable human limitations, the liberty of soul that makes possible authentic happiness.” [5]

Yeah, I have been reading and rereading the last issue of Persuasions, the journal of the Jane Austen Society (JASNA). Does random literary analysis float your boat? I find it particularly convenient when trying to escape reality. Yet another rereading of Persuasion is next, as soon as I unpack my books. Yes, moving again. How many times now in the last three years? I’ve lost count. For now, it’s the ranch for the summer. Just me and that ornery palomino mare, let’s hope she doesn’t slam me into any more phone poles! Full speed ahead! Let loose the topsail! Damn the torpedoes!

Yes, Virginia, even married couples danced with others a century ago: a quadrille.

See you soon on the dance floor!

and goodbye to a great friend.

[1] Stole that line from Woody Allen’s movie, Midnight in Paris. A must-see for all Francophiles.

We’ve opened a café of our own right here in the backcountry of California’s Central Coast. This little backwater halfway between Frisco and LA is its own kind of gorgeous, straight out of Steinbeck: rolling hills covered with vineyards and statuesque oaks; cottonwoods and sycamores along the creeks flowing into the Pacific Ocean and the mighty Salinas.

Salinas River

Atascadero, once so sleepy it rolled over and played dead every night at 6, now practically teems with amorphous protomorphium swimming blindly upstream through the marine layer into they know not what or wherefore (picture 3 pm when junior get-highers get out of jail free). But no worries, we are all about helping our fellow pleistozoic critteralium evolve and merge into the more convoluted streams of higher consciousness, otherwise known as twenty-first century artsy wine-guzzling nouveau-cui$ine Culture with a Capital C.

6005 El Camino Realcarltonbakery@gmail.com

There was at last count one really good restaurant in our three-block downtown: Fig; another one in nearby Santa Margarita: The Range (as in, “Home, home on the Range”)(*if you don’t love classic western writer Will James I’m not talking to you anymore!); one great burger joint: Sylvester’s Big, Hot n’ Juicy; an awesome homestyle Mexican place (El Compadre) next to a fine bakery (Hush Harbor); and a classic dive: the newly reborn Whisky n’ June. (Never trust a man who doesn’t like whisky and women!)

yeah baby!

Hmmm… where was I going with all this? Floating facedown in those muddy waters of swirling upwardly mobile sometimes divinely-inspired (as in a chocolate croissant) sense and sensibility, was I? Oh, yeah, downtown Atascadero also has…

The ARTery

a hangout frequented by cool artistic types that boasts a scandalous history of NIMBY activist-inflaming murals painted by folks from that evil southern city of the Fallen Angels. And the shining star of A-Town, the Rotunda…

City Hall

… a wannabe colonial domed and pillared squarish brick city hall structure (reminiscent of an abandoned feminine implant from 20,000 feet up) casting its authoritative gaze on the strangely-named “Sunken Gardens”: our courthouse square minus the courthouse. “Sunken” perhaps refers to the meaning of atascadero in Spanish: a place where one gets stuck in the mud, a kind of hell hole. A close friend’s husband, born and raised in Puerto Rico, told me that when he was a kid, his mom would yell at him to clean his room ‘cause it was an “ATASCADERO!”

Heck, even Oprah’s been here!

Atascadero has too strip malls, too many Starbucks, too many stoplights, and nine too many exits off the 101. Just another California town basking in the warm fall sunshine. Lord, please bring us some rain sometime soon! Which is why we couldn’t come back to God’s Country without bearing special gifts gleaned from our 2-1/2 year tango-crawl through the wilderness of the civilized world.

the newly reborn Carlton Café

a room at the Carlton… up above the bakery!

How much time could YOU fritter away lounging in a great café in a great city like New York, Paris, Buenos Aires, Barcelona?

Café Tortoni, Buenos Aires

So how ‘bout we don’t call it frittering. Call it a waste of time if you will, but a QUALITY waste of time (oink oink KPIG). How many hours could YOU spend sitting around drinking a velvety latte or a structurally perfect macchiato? I sure can… and I don’t know where the time goes but it does keep going…have you noticed time passes on the left? ‘Cause it’s always going faster than we are. And left is the evil side: “a sinistra” (to the left). When Dante descends into hell, his path winds down to the left. Counterclockwise. Got it?

hmmm… did we take the wrong turn?

Picture yourself sitting in a nice comfy chair in a cool, beautiful wabisabi space… quality time, chill time. Time to think, to dream, to get inspired; to power thru your daily in-box, google this’n’that, check your FAQs, consult your horrorscope… fire off a few nasty grams to the big cheese… wait a sec… don’t toss your luck to the winds and ruin your forecast! Breathe, do some yogalates, take time to visit with a good friend, take your mom out to lunch, celebrate your cumpleaños in a great café… dancing tango, of course.

Confiteria Ideal

So, you may be wondering, where IS she running off to now with this late night verbal soirée? Just explaining to y’all why we HAD to bring a little taste of café-culture home with us, in the form of delicious artisan breads and pastries, high-octane coffee, and a beautiful wabisabi space for dancing tango!

Salsa break at La Milonga del Carlton

The tall relentless guy in my world just HAD to open his own bakery, so he could bake the bread and bring home the bacon. A place to wine and dine friends ‘cause he loves to feed hungry hordes.

Courtney’s Chocolate Bread

still life with 5-grain loaf, cheese & olives

And a place where he and his buddies could stand around and spin lies, surrounded by lots of dough, solving the world’s problems over and over again, day after day. Luckily those problems never get solved (you’ve noticed that, too?)… so they rework possible outcomes, endlessly reposition themselves… when people consume caffeine they can talk all day long!

boy can they talk!

Besides, we were drinking so much coffee out, one day he did the math and decided it would be cheaper to open our own café! Now he’s wondering about that math… duh!

2+2=22?

Must be the faulty DNA we all share. Didn’t those wiser-than-us extraterrestrials toss all the rejects on our planet? Where did YOU think politicians came from?

If you dance tango in the U.S., sooner or later you’re going to gravitate to Portland, like a small planet unexplicably attracted to Saturn or Jupiter… a pull that can cause a small planet like Earth to… flip its axis! A Tango mecca like Portland exerts an influence on everything in its gravitational field. Where else besides Buenos Aires or Paris can you hear a musician playing Piazzolla on the street corner?

So what’s there to do in Portland? Like, Tango every night!

birthday dance at Norse Hall

The Portland Tango scene is really awesome. Partly because the music is traditional (but I miss those Buenos Aires salsa breaks) and also because it’s accessible: no more than 15 minutes to any of the milongas.

Saturday night milonga at Berretín

Did I mention the outstanding DJs spinning classic tango every night of the week? …like tango DJ Joe Leonardo. He also creates retro black and white tango films. (tangosilentfilms.com).

DJ Joe Leonardo & girlfriend Hannah

Monday night you can dance in the dough… next to the vault!

Fort Knox North

in the old U.S. Treasury building downtown

The Treasury Milonga replaces the PPPA milonga, which was at a really cool location on the east side of the river. Kinda wabi-sabi, ¿qué no?

What I just don’t get about alternative tango is, how can you call it Tango if it’s not TANGO music? Is Tango a dance, or is it a genre of music? Can you separate the two? We went to check out the Wednesday milonga, and when I asked if the music was alternative, aka Nuevo, the doorman told me “it’s so far alternative it’s not even tango.” Wow! For an interesting discussion on traditional vs. nuevo, see The Rise and Fall of Tango Milonguero Style at tangovoice.wordpress.com. But we are so far from Buenos Aires, and so close to……. the Dark Kingdom.

beautiful Portland evening

Thursday nights at Norse Hall are unforgettable… what a great milonga!

Sunday evenings you can tango at Lenora’s Ballroom: beautiful space, friendly atmosphere, and all the traditional tango you need to get your endorphin fix for the night and all your mental faculties gratuitously upgraded and ready to face the work week.

urban chic tango venue

“Tango invites you to become the protagonist of an ongoing story, which is danced with another through a mutual improvisation that depends on a deep, body-to-body communication, an entwinement of the spirit and the limbs. When you dance it, if you want to dance it well, you immediately understand that it is perhaps the only dance that requires the equal participation of both dancers in order to be fluid. Thus its difficulty, complexity and sensuality…. Tango anyone?” [Velleda C. Ceccioli, Psychology Tomorrow, May 2013].

a good connection is essential…

A foto-cortina from a visit to the Peninsula (SF Bay Area). I know most of my readers will recognize Ben, el Rey de la Milonga, and tango teacher Igor Polk:

having’ fun!

Cecilia & Willow making’ friends while the guys dance!

OK, and finally, coming straight to you from my spies in Buenos Aires:

Advice for newbie dancers heading to BAires: milonga tips, codes, and what you need to know to get dances!

milonga at Aires Tangueros, Rivadavia 1392

An Anonymous Tanguera speaks:

The reason guidebooks and friends contradict each other is that there is no way to answer your questions. Where would men be more likely to ask a stranger to dance? What kind of stranger? There are so many factors that affect whether you will get asked: your appearance, your height, your level of dance, the confidence you project, the warmth you project, your style of dress… and so on. I go to two or three milongas a week, and at any one of them I might dance nonstop or I might never leave my seat. I’m the same person each time, but there may be fewer men I know one week… or maybe I’m projecting a different energy.

milongueras de BAires

Where do men who dance well go to dance? Maybe the men you consider good dancers are not the ones I would consider good. My friends don’t necessarily like the same leaders I do… we all have a different connection. In any case, it is not true that the afternoon milongas attract better dancers. I can’t think of an afternoon milonga that has a level of dance that matches some of the better night milongas. That said, I dance with some great leaders at afternoon milongas. It is sooo variable.

matinee milonga at La Ideal

Anyway, as a 35-year-old woman, especially if you are attractive and look younger than your age, you will get asked to dance often. Unless the day you go there happens to be dozens of other young, beautiful women… many of whom are already known by the men. That happens. The best thing to do if things look hopeless is to go to another milonga.

Milonga Viejo Correo

My best advice would be to not stress about it. You will get to dance. You will have a good time. You will be here for long enough to find your own favorites. Some little milongas del barrio are much more fun than the famous ones that all the tourists go to. I mean, I wouldn’t go to Niño Bien with a gun to my head!

I need to understand what style of dance you’re looking for. You mention “milonguero salon style,” which is really confusing. Milongas here are increasingly breaking down by age/style — unfortunate, but a reality. The young milongas are almost exclusively salon style… a more open embrace with more elaborate movements and adornments. Milonguero style is quite the opposite… very close embrace, with teeny movements (back crosses instead of ochos with pivot, for example) and almost no decorations. Since you said you liked Canning, I suspect you are looking for close embrace, but not true milonguero style.

A friend of mine likes a couple of young, salon style places… Villa Malcolm and Milonga 10. If you don’t usually dance salon, you may find them a bit intimidating (not knowing anyone and facing a lot of stunning 20-year-olds). As he says, La Viruta is good only very late… and yes, the good dancers all dance with each other.

good friends at Sunderland

An Anonymous Tanguero speaks:

I think that the key is to understand and respect the codes. If I see a woman who stands up after a cabeceo and looks for the man, I just don’t invite her: beginner and super banned.

If, when the tanda finishes, she stays talking with somebody on the dance floor, banned, too easy and I don’t want milongueras to think that I am fishing.

los Reyes del Tango en la Viruta

I also suggest you study the dance floor. It’s easy to see who is who. If nobody knows you, nobody wants to take the risk. If the milongueros see you dancing with somebody they respect, they are going to invite you.

milongueras de la Viruta

If you don’t want a coffee invitation, go home early. At El Beso, after 1:30 nobody dances if there is nothing after, because then is when they invite, they expect to be invited.

El Beso – I love the walls!

Basic but important, don’t dance more than 2 tandas in one night with anybody. Since I have a family I prefer to dance only one tanda per night so there are no misunderstandings.

no misunderstandings here!

You sit with women, and if a man invites himself to sit down next to you, look at him as if he’s raping his own mother. In other words, give him a dirty look and DON’T DANCE WITH THE PENDEJO!

who, me?

We have two reasons for inviting a new girl to dance: she is an outstanding dancer or she is super cute.

super cute!

La Viruta is more a place to hang out with friends, to continue dancing with people you know after other milongas close, or to look for a hook-up. If you are only interested in tango, it is best to enter when the entrance is waived between 2h30 and 3h30, since before you also have tandas of rock and salsa. At La Viruta, men typically do not cabeceo, but walk around and ask women to dance. The guys that ask women to dance are typically not the ones hanging out with friends, so you have to judge if they are the kind that looks for a hook-up, and if you want to dance with them. It is normal to say “no, gracias” if you are not interested. Don’t go to La Viruta on Thursdays, there are no tandas. And never dance after 5:30. The lights are off for a couple of seconds just before la Cumparsita.

Orquesta El Afronte en la Maldita Milonga, Perú 571

Tango is the same all over the world but dancing in Buenos Aires is different from anywhere else you have ever been.

Teatro Colón

house band at Café Vinilo, Gorriti 3780

Be friendly, smile, try not to dance with the vultures, be open to new experiences, have fun and leave plenty of room in your suitcase for shoes! You are going to have a great time!

Opening this post with no dazzling first line was not really what I had in mind. Somebody please just toss a poetic blast of bombast at my beleaguered brain! Say what? Can you repeat that? No matter, let’s just get down to the biz of catching up on our whereabouts since we left Barcelona last August. People keep asking me, where are you guys? Well, right now we’re in Portland, Oregon. And, sad to say, many long miles from the beautiful Costa Brava, España. Here’s where we were in August 2012: along the coast north of Barcelona, known as the Costa Brava. We rented a car and went exploring.

Big Sur’s got nothin’ on the Costa Brava!

Many years ago I asked one of my uncles, in Italy, how they manage to keep Italy so clean, green and well-tended. “We toss all our trash into the Mediterranean!” he replied with head-tossing laughter!

no trash in sight… just lots of gorgeous scenery!

Not trashy here on the Costa Brava, and only 116 km south of the South of France. Check it out! This beach borders the historic town of Sant Feliu de Guixols. I have no idea who that happy saint was, it’s Catalan to me.

Sunday afternoon at the beach – Renoir could have painted this

Sant Feliu has an awesome museum, the Espai Carmen Thyssen, founded by the late Baron Hans Henrik von Thyssen-Bornemisza (1921-2002), a wealthy Swiss-German industrialist art collector with an ancestral Hungarian title and a villa in Montecarlo. The museum is named for von Thyssen’s fifth wife, Carmen “Tita” Cervera, a former Miss Spain, whose art-loving instincts played a key role in bringing her husband’s valuable collection of nineteenth century Andalusian and Catalan art to Spain.

The museum entrance is on the right. Behind the arch is the 10th century Roman monastery, built over the ruins of an old castle which saw plenty of action back in the day. Apparently the monks were occasionally called upon to drop their rosaries and defend their turf from marauding turks, moors and other riffraff, with arrows shot from narrow openings in the high walls.

Carmen Thyssen Museum on right

Benedictine monastery, rebuilt in 1723

Ben at the Arc de Sant Benet (1747)

Quite the jetsetting playboy, Baron Thyssen once famously explained his surname: «Bornemisza significa que no bebe vino, y yo más bien debería decir que no bebo agua». (“Bornemisza means “doesn’t drink wine,” but in my case “doesn’t drink water” would be more apt.”) The Baron also has museums in Málaga and Madrid. In the 1980s he created a foundation to prevent his fabulous collection being dismantled and sold off to private collectors. My mom, a retired art critic, reminded me that she interviewed Baron von Thyssen when he visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, accompanying an exhibition of his personal collection.

PR for the fabulous inaugural exhibit at the Espai Carmen Thyssen. What a gorgeous day, and filled with spectacular art. The above painting made me nostalgic for our time in Paris: it rained so much last spring.

The Baroness Carmen Thyssen said of Sant Feliu: “…her dazzling beauty and joyful people I found captivating from the first.”

Sant Feliu aerial shot

Adios, España! In late August we flew from Barcelona back to Paris and on to San Francisco. After visiting family and friends in California we took a month-long break in beautiful South Carolina.

Charleston SC

From Charleston — where I could stay forever — we drove south to Murrell’s Inlet for a vacation from the vacation! A restorative, off-schedule downtime of surf, sun, sleep & fresh seafood prepared by Chef Ben.

late afternoon on the inter-coastal waterway

Avendaw Creek

Ben caught a big fish.

we kayaked

we spotted a dockside watering hole.

a working fishing boat

Art on the docks

tidal marsh

even a pirate ship!

ciao! from South Carolina

we head off into the sunset

South Carolina was wonderful last september, with its sizzling beachfront and dripping wet hot humid weather… I loved it! But eventually it was time to move on…

we spent a few days in the Great Smoky Mountains

we tango’d near the Capitol Dome

We milonga’d in DC one night before heading to New York state. It was a warm and beautiful night in DC, and really cool to be dancing in Freedom Plaza, with the words of Martin Luther King Jr. engraved on the stones beneath our feet. The next day we drove through northeastern Pennsylvania over into New York, and then more or less followed the Hudson River Valley north, bypassing New York City, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Freedom Plaza – Capital Tangueros

the old homestead in PA

Wayne Hotel, Honesdale, PA

upstate New York

Albany

Albany

grazing appaloosa in the Green Mountains, Vermont

falls near Rochester VT

Red Barn

Sandy’s Books and Bakery in Rochester VT– where old hippies munch good munchies

The frenetic grease-dripping fast food twilight zone of a cross-country road trip finally came to a standstill when we took up lodgings in Montpelier, Northeast Kingdom, Vermont. Time slowed to a crawl. We woke up to shorter days, longer nights, cafés and restaurants shutting down so early — and this is the state capital! (pop. 8,000) People actually watch TV and play board games in the evenings. Not to be left out of all the fun, we picked a free tv (the formerly glorious, heavyweight color tv, so impressive back in 1965!) and signed up for cable… like hooking up a one-way IV sucking down your bank account. That lasted a couple of months till we went back to watching news and soccer matches online.

Vermont was picture-postcard pretty! Ben started artisan bread-making classes at the New England Culinary Institute. We found a 3rd floor apartment in a 100+ year old house downtown. Pretty comfy, though we only had a bed, a kitchen table, 2 chairs and some cardboard boxes. When we arrived in October the leaves were turning and the days were still pretty nice, not really too cold yet, the nights just barely dipping into the 40s.

view of the Montpelier Capital Dome and clock tower from our apartment

Ben enjoyed his breadmaking classes at NECI, though the expectation level was decidedly a few rungs below his experience at the French Culinary in Manhattan a few years back, where highly paid world class egomaniacs belittled & berated their students’ efforts… turning out some highly trained professionals nonetheless. A little constructive criticism can be a useful part of the learning process… ouch! Every day was a blast for Ben; he even enjoyed trudging through the snow to be at the bakery at 6:00 am. He was lightyears beyond most of the students… mostly mouth-breathers, you know, adolescents with perpetually hanging lower lips. When he had extra time (he’s fast) the chefs let him do his own thing, and he made the most of it: croissants, pan au chocolat, marzipan pastries, escargot, stollen, panettone… you name it. Lots of yummy stuff… not to mention a million varieties of artisan breads, made the traditional way. Like, the way they make it in Paris. Voilá!

La Brioche, the NECI bakery

Ben cooking at home

Yeah, he loves to cook and the kitchen always looks like a tornado’s touched down, but it’s worth it. Delicious! Notice the way cool 1950s electric stove? The oven window looks like a porthole on a spaceship. My spaceship!

a vintage classic

The door on the left is a warming oven, and the rear left burner is a deep well with a built-in soup pot. Crazy! Some nut will pay big bucks for it on eBay someday!

Speaking of tornados, we were in Vermont when Hurricane Sandy tore up New York and New Jersey.

Hurricane Sandy NYC

She was just a breath of whispering wind by the time she reached northern Vermont — lucky us.

beautiful St. Anne’s was right next door

Fall colors in Montpelier… flaming red, orange and gold. There were still a few warm days but not for long… the days got shorter and colder, and there wasn’t a heck of a lot to do after dark. Burlington had a small tango community, but their milongas were not what we were used to — sorry, friends! Although we did have a fabulous evening at the Palais de Glace Holiday Milonga, in Stowe, and a New Year’s Eve Milonga with live music (and a hysterically funny skit!) in Hartford, Connecticut.

he’s gotta quit flirting with the waitress… or there’ll be hell to pay!

Happy New Years’ Eve!

Three months in a deep freeze was a little much for me… I’m a California girl! Snow is exquisitely lovely, of course. Making cut-paper snowflakes is my idea of a good time in the snow. Furnishing our apartment was kind of fun, though. We found this really awesome blue ultrasuede chair at an estate sale:

with lime green piping… and a matching couch

Getting it up to the apartment was a challenge

nothing like friendly neighbors to lend a hand

Needless to say, the winding steep and narrow stairs up to our spacious atelier in Montpelier would not admit the couch, nor the bed. Lucky for us when we moved out three months later the new tenant took it all. I kept picturing how much fun it would be, rappeling all that furniture back down in the snow.

fast forward to snowy night on our street

Montpelier West Branch

Beautiful Montpelier Round Porch and Tower

Before long our world became an exercise in whiteout conditions, arctic blasts, ice showers and icicles, frozen cars, frozen streets, sidewalks and noses; woolen mittens and lost kittens, gloves, scarves, wool caps, snow boots, layers upon layers of the warmest stuff you got… fleecy jammies and bathrobes (or my version: just drag the blanket around the house with you), down jackets… and don’t forget sheepskin booties for indoors. Snowy winter holidays prevailed. But before all that white stuff covered everything, we took a weekend trip in Maine, including a stop at L.L.Beanville.

battling moose at LL Bean world headquarters

Maine coast

New England Saltbox

boats in dry dock: Wicked Good is no secret; La Galatea, Cervantes’ first novel (1585)

having dinner in Bath, Maine

Home of the Lobster Roll

Maine harbor

cold mountain, New Hampshire

Brrr! Those were cold days.

icicles in Montpelier

downtown Montpelier

my son and grandson hiking

the old stone tower

the sled run

view from the tower

tall snowy trees

a snowy evening in Montpelier: our apartment top floor

Christmas in Montpelier

We left Vermont in mid-January, driving across the frigid Midwest. Mile upon mile of frozen highway: bleak, cold, heartless. Miraculously, we only met one snow storm, near Buffalo, NY. It lasted less than two hours. I parked us in the draft of a big semi and hung onto his coattails till the storm eased up. We kept to the northern route: Buffalo, Chicago, Omaha, Cheyenne, Boise… all the way to Portland. One evening we found a great little milonga in Lincoln, Nebraska… what a pleasant surprise! The Milonguero Spirit appearing in a place previously disguised as Nowheresville! No wonder… the home of the Univ. of Nebraska Press. Publishers of books and journals specializing in American history, the American West, and Native American studies. (Lewis & Clark fans, take note!) Our next destination: Portland, Oregon. Stay tuned!